Day 1: Australia has already betrayed me. What I expected to be a land of infinite sunshine and gold and rainbows has instead revealed itself to be Seattle; there are simply too many clouds in the sky, and I did not push a broken luggage cart through the windowless confines of Sydney Airport’s International Terminal to have my newfound surfer buzz quashed by an equally stark outdoors. That Australia would welcome me with such brazen disregard for my extremely nuanced perception of it is a slight I will not soon forget.

At any rate, I have successfully arrived in Wollongong safe and sound, despite the several heart attacks I had whilst being driven down the wrong side of the road. I don’t think my escort liked me very much, because every time I looked down at my phone, I would forget that Australians drive on the wrong side of the road, and I would scream and attempt to wrest control of the wheel from him whenever I looked up. Not helping matters was the fact that I couldn’t use my phone in Australia because I didn’t have a SIM card yet, which I forgot every time I screamed.

Things were not looking up for me as I stepped into Weerona College. Perhaps Australia and the United States were just too different, I thought. Sure, Australians may speak the same language as me, and most of them may be white like me, and they may understand all my cultural references, but I just didn’t see how I could connect with any of them. Maybe it’s just an incompatible pairing, like any of my electronics with their weird plugs. After nearly two hours, I was fully prepared to be miserable for the next five months. But I decided to give Australia one more fair go by dining with some locals.

And just like that, I had found a way in. They were loud. They were obnoxious. They wouldn’t stop ragging on each other. They had no interest in the foreigners.

They were just like Americans.

What a relief it was to sit among such company! That table was like a home away from home. Perhaps we’re not so different after all, I thought. One thing’s for sure, I’m going to rest easy tonight. Mostly because of jet lag, but you know. Tomorrow, I begin an adventure unlike any I’ve taken before!

Day 2: My electronics still don’t work with these plugs, which means I can’t shave, which means I look like a werewolf. I hate Australia.